The persistence of Swirlies

It seems like a small miracle that Swirlies never broke up. Founded in Boston in 1990, the shoegaze group has gone through several periods of inactivity, the longest being from 2003 to 2009 when they neither toured nor released any new music. And since their beginning, they’ve run into their share of obstacles, from lineup changes to members moving to different cities (vocalist Damon Tutunjian moved all the way to Sweden), as well as problems with an old record label they signed to in the ‘90s.

Yet Swirlies live on. Since 2009 they’ve been gradually growing more active, touring about once every two years, and expanding the duration of those tours each successive time. And in 2016, they released the single “Fantastic Trumpets Forever,” their first new music in more than a decade. After 13 years, the band—which includes Tutunjian, bassist Andy Bernick, drummer Adam Pierce, keyboardist Deb Warfield and guitarist Elliott Malvas—are finally making their way back to the West Coast.

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In a phone interview, Bernick says that time away from each other just might be the thing that kept them going for so long, even though on paper it seems like it should have ended the band.

“Distance—that’s probably what made it possible to go that length of time without ever having officially split with each other,” he says. “I’m not sure it would have worked the same if we were in the same town. I don’t know if it would have lasted as long.”

While the band’s activity has slowed considerably over the years, their legend has grown. Swirlies are often associated with the shoegaze movement that rose up in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s in the UK. Named for musicians’ tendencies to stare down toward their effects pedal boards, the genre became briefly buzzy through bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Ride, and Swirlies benefited from being mentioned in conjunction with those groups. In fact, their 1993 album Blonder Tongue Audio Baton—reissued last year by Taang! Records—was ranked eleventh on Pitchfork’s list of the 50 best shoegaze albums of all time. And just a few months before that, their song “Park the Car by the Side of the Road” was featured on Still in a Dream, an extensive box set chronicling the history of shoegaze.

Bernick says that the band is appreciative of the renewed interest, and for that matter the press acclaim. But he also never thought they were actually a shoegaze band.

“We seem to float around in that genre sometimes, in articles or whatever. We were kind of like a satellite group in there,” he says. “We didn’t feel like we were the closest fit to it, but I understand why that happened. We had a different background and different DNA than the other bands. I grew up listening to hardcore and noisy stuff. That kind of influenced what we did early on than other bands at the time.”

While having their debut album back in print is a boon to some of Swirlies’ fans, it’s a mixed blessing for the band. They only released three proper studio albums during their career, but two of them are owned outright by Taang!, which means that they don’t make any money off of the reissue. Bernick says that not owning the rights to their first couple records has become “a source of consternation,” and was the result of being young and inexperienced with business contracts when they first started making music. In fact, opportunities have arisen throughout the years that could have been mutually beneficial to them and the label, but ultimately ended up going nowhere.

“It’s not a new thing,” he says. “Lots of bands have had this happen to them. When you’re younger you sign a contract and you’re not as savvy, or you’re more involved with making the music than what’s in that paper.

“The only record that we kind of own outright is 2003’s Cats of the Wild,” he adds. “Anything before that, our old label owns it. I don’t feel like anyone’s making lots of money off of it, but the lack of control, lack of autonomy...it’s a pretty demoralizing situation. Even the lack of ability to speak to them in a productive way, or to do something with those songs that would make sense. We had interest from other labels to reissue the Blonder Tongue Audio Baton record, but Taang! wasn’t interested.”

In spite of the hard-earned lessons of the music industry, Swirlies haven’t been discouraged by the setbacks. They continue to perform, and there’s even been talk of recording a new album at some point. Between tending to issues of family and career, the friendship between band members and joy for making music continues to bring them back onstage.

“Every time we get together there’s an interest in continuing on and making something new and not just being static. For Damon and I it’s something we’d like to do, but it’s difficult for a number of reasons,” Bernick says. “But we’ve been friends forever, so it’s always a possibility.”